Fya Fox: ‘Sad bangers’ and finding a balance, ahead of Indiependence debut
As your writer gets to chatting with singer and songwriter Fya Fox over Zoom, it’s a rare breather - last weekend, she and her live collaborators were playing at Stendhal Festival in Limavady, Co Derry, an annual highlight of the DIY music calendar in the northern counties, an appearance that followed gigs at Galway Folk Festival, and Donegal’s Sea Sessions.
She heads for north Cork next weekend to play Indiependence, the latest stop in a busy summer of live appearances, following a number of single releases earlier in the year. “It's really nice to be able to go places, and to get out and perform live. This year has been amazing for that, and obviously with the last few years, like, it was just a bit mental.
“It's been really good for me, as well, because a lot of people are still just coming across my music, and especially as I released a lot of music in [the covid crisis]. So a lot of people hadn't come across me before. So it's nice going to festivals, people coming up to me being like "oh, you know, I've never come across you before", so it's been really heartwarming going to those festivals and playing those gigs.
Fox specialises in what she has dubbed ‘basically sad bangers’, and though accessibility is clearly part of her artistic vision, there’s a tad more sophistication and nuance to her sound than the simple pursuit of said ‘banger’ factor, for lack of a better term. Citing influence from the likes of London Grammar and Florence + the Machine, she speaks about her recent artistic processes.
“'Busy' is a funny one, my second-last release. It has a really, really serious meaning behind it, coming from a really hard heartbreak during covid, but I kind-of wanted to disguise it, because I felt like a lot of people during covid were going through life, disguising really what was going on, because everybody was having a really hard time. Even when I went into write 'Busy', I wanted to cover it in more of a major melody, and for the chorus to hit more in a positive way.
Fox’s busy schedule, in terms of gigs, speaks to the effort that she and crew are putting in, and there’s been serious support from radio all over the island, editorial playlisting on Spotify, etc. Still and all, as the territory of music and trying to make things work continues to change, Fya Fox is still figuring out the balance between making headway in the world of music, and the intermittent annoyances of ‘real life’.
“There's no point in me sugarcoating it, but there's no point in me being like, 'oh, it's so hard'. There are so many industries that are like the music industry, really hard and you just have to grind. I was actually chatting to someone recently, and I was saying when I was younger, playing cover gigs and working full time, my friends would have been going out at the weekends, but I kind-of had to choose, like I want to sing and I want to go to gigs, that's what I wanted to do, but it's sacrifices like that, you have to decide if you really want to pursue it. Trying to get out there, like, I still haven't got the balance sorted, even like with TikTok and social media in general.
“I always laugh because anytime I have a new song coming out. and I do an interview, the first question most people ask is, like, 'well, what's next?'. And I'm like, 'do you know the time and money and creativity that went into that?' It is a juggling act. I do think that I find comfort in the chaos, there are a lot of people that I know, they do the nine-to-five thing and they're like, 'are you still doing the music'? But I think maybe living in their world wouldn't work for me, and vice versa for them. I think there's just some people cut out for the chaos, and there's some people not.”
Fya Fox plays the Sunday night of Indiependence festival, Deer Farm, Mitchelstown; running Friday, August 4, to Sunday, August 6. Tickets and more information are available at https://indiependencefestival.com/.
